For these Yankee faithful, the nosebleed section suits them just fine

Sit in the top row of the 400-level seats of Yankee Stadium, the land of $120 tickets and 20 mph wind gusts, and you sit in the Yankee Alps.

Look down 100 feet and change to the action on the field; look behind you and see the summits of the lesser apartment buildings of the Bronx.

"New York is an expensive city and I love sports," said Tim Haymann, 23, a university student from Düsseldorf, Germany, perched high above the site of Game 2 of Tuesday night's American League Championship Series between the Yankees and the Cleveland Guardians. 

"I wanted to get the emotions of the stadium, so I looked for the most inexpensive ticket."

Haymann was attending his first baseball game, having learned the rules — the basics, anyway — from a Nintendo video game.

"I’m going to cheer for New York, of course," he said. "I don’t know the opponent."

For Marisa Rinde, 30, of upstate Binghamton, who works for Procter & Gamble, and Paige Millard, 31, a Spanish teacher from Wyalusing, Pennsylvania, it was not their first baseball game but their first Yankees postseason.

"I love if there’s a home run you get to see it go all the way across the stadium," Rinde said.

Conor Gleason, 30, a trucker from Rockland County, and Jake Israel, 30, a Weill Cornell patient coordinator from Bergen County, New Jersey,  made a last-minute purchase of a pair of tickets for a total of $350.

"All that’s important to me is being in the stadium," Israel said. "I’m not willing to pay $6,000 to sit by the dugout."

Gleason, a Yankees fan for years, said he’d sat just a few seats away for his last Yankees postseason game, a 2018 matchup against the Red Sox that ended badly for the home team.

"Hopefully we’ll get better memories," he said of Tuesday night's game.

High above home plate, Maria Sarli, 65, an actuary from Kamas, Utah, said she’d been a Yankees fan since storied catcher Thurman Munson died in a plane crash.

"I tuned in to see what sort of ceremony they’d have and I watched the game and I was hooked," she said of the tribute to Munson after his death during the 1979 season.

Sarli said she and her husband come east every year to watch the leaves change.

"I decided we’d stay in the area if the Yankees made the playoffs," she said. Her husband bought the tickets and she approved.

"I always sit high up behind home plate," Sarli added. "It’s the best seat in the house. You see the whole field."

Nearby, Kei Kurihara, 50, a telecom worker from Bronxville, said he was fine — for the moment, considering the cool fall night — in a wool undershirt, Aaron Judge T-shirt and 2003 Yankees jacket. For a kid who grew up loving the Yankees in Mets country, Queens, when the Amazins were winning and the Bombers weren't, it was a treat to watch his team in the playoffs, Kurihara said.

"When I was growing up, there was no postseason baseball, really, for the Yankees." He said he’d be back for the rest of the ALCS series.

"Hopefully," he said, "I can come back for the World Series."

As game time approached, temperatures dropped into the 40s. "I’ve got a beanie," said Dr. Brian Koch, 36, an emergency room physician from Hoboken. Yes, he conceded, the 400-level was far from the action on the field. But "this is definitely much closer than my couch."

In section 405, some 314 feet from home plate, Jaime Gonzalez, 47, a trucker from Corona, Queens, said he was attending his second game of the week in the same section.

"I can see if there’s a home run, and I can see every angle from here," he said. Monday night’s game, he said, "was really cold. The temperature dropped and it was windy." He’d learned his lesson and was wearing a sweatshirt, two T-shirts and two Yankees jerseys Tuesday.

Gonzalez figured if the Guardians put up much of a fight, he wouldn’t get home until after midnight. His workday starts at 7 a.m. He was philosophical about this.

"Once you become a fan, you don't care about the weather, sleeplessness," he said. "Sometimes you go straight from a game to the parking lot where you work."